Page 2697 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 October 1992
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INDEPENDENT HEALTH COMPLAINTS UNIT
Ministerial Statement and Paper
Debate resumed from 16 September 1992, on motion by Mr Berry:
That the Assembly takes note of the papers.
MRS CARNELL (3.52): Madam Speaker, designing a system to handle complaints in the health system is a perennial problem. It is an issue that, I am sure, all administrators face at one time or another. But, when Mr Berry announced a new independent complaints unit as the flagship of his election promises in health, I had to admit to being a little perplexed. Is this really what Mr Berry believes is a top priority issue when ACT Health is facing many serious problems, such as lengthening waiting lists, insufficient bed numbers, workload problems for our nurses, and non-availability of domiciliary services for our elderly, just to mention a few? Yet Mr Berry has chosen to establish a complaints unit, at significant cost, ahead of solving pressing problems in our system. Perhaps Mr Berry envisages that the future, under his regime, will be such that a very large complaints unit is a must. I certainly hope not.
My concern over the timing of Mr Berry's new complaints unit has paled into insignificance now that I have read the discussion paper. I believed, as I am sure most people did, that Mr Berry planned to reorganise and rationalise the current complaints mechanism before setting up a new unit. Wrong again. Mr Berry plans to establish a new bureaucracy which will operate as well as all of the existing structures. If any of you believe that the current complaints mechanisms are not extensive enough, let me explain the present situation.
ACT Health already has an information and complaints unit, with its own office, staff, et cetera. There is a Health Care and Complaints Subcommittee of the Board of Health, with an independent member of the board as chairperson and a number of secondees. There is a complaints officer at Woden Valley Hospital. Other health facilities also have their own complaints officer. There are eight professional boards, whose responsibilities include handling complaints against professionals. There are internal complaints mechanisms to the provider or managers directly. There is, of course, the police, the Board of Health or the Minister himself. There are professional organisations. There is the Consumer Affairs Bureau. There is the Community Advocate in certain circumstances and, of course, the Ombudsman.
What is amazing is that all of these bodies will continue to operate, and Mr Berry is proposing to add not one but two new bodies - the Independent Complaints Unit and the new Complaints Advisory Council. In addition, Mr Berry talks about setting up a Patient Advocate. He will have to find funding and the appropriate person or organisation to take on this role. Has the Government gone absolutely crazy? I suppose that that is a bit of a rhetorical question after the last couple of days. We know that the answer is yes, and the Independent Complaints Unit proposal shows just how bureaucracy mad they really are. Mr Berry is simply proposing to add two new organisations without sorting out the current infrastructure. The discussion paper does not provide any reassurance that duplication will be avoided. The confused structures being developed for health complaints are not the result of some sophisticated game plan, but a sure sign of bureaucratic creep.
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